Exactly. If there was a club that got togther all the time to drink Coca Cola, talk about Coca Cola, share ideas how to make Coca Cola better, etc. Then Coca Cola said "y'all can't do that anymore" I bet a lot of those people would start drinking Pepsi.
Maybe not the best analogy but you get my point. Where is our Pepsi?
Buck - Not to be blunt but, we are the Pepsi! That was what caused all of this. We where on their forum and not preaching the message they wanted. They want to be the resource, the experts.....and we proved that was crap. Our community challenged the establishment - and we know how that ends. They wanted us telling everyone how you had to be a member and the like. We proved you didn't have to attend a deer steward class, or enroll in their classified lands program or be a member or attend a banquette. Instead we developed into a rouge community where we could demonstrate you didn't need any of that. As such we threatened their validity. It wasn't our intention to do so....at least it wasn't mine. But we took the education, and outreach and those principles to heart and tried to use this knowledge and evidence to welcome others, and we where pretty good at it! They want the world to think they own QDM, and in technical/legal terms they may......however we proved that you don't need the "A" that goes along with the "QDM" part.
Like any rouge faction.....the "machine" that spawned it saw us as enough of a threat to warrant their attention. In the long term they made the right call. They now control the message, they can now better sell their "secret" of QDM, they can now make the average deer hunter more dependent on them. This then facilitates more corporate sponsorship, more participation in their various money making efforts and tightens their grip as "the leader". They have better control of their product. It was a business decision and money talks.
What I find interesting is how they want to be "the resource" yet they truly have ZERO power. They can't confront your state DNR, they can't speak out against a particular piece of legislation and your DNR doesn't even have to invite them to the table for discussion. They will not and can not represent YOU. They won't point blank tell you that, but they will lead you to believe that they have your best interests in mind. They want the image, but they lack the authority. Some folks saw this long ago, some of us took a little longer.
Another organization to challenge QDMA - to be honest.....more than likely would eventually turn into the same monster with a different name. People get greedy, people want power, people have ego's......
